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Adam Johnson Trial Verdict

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Rober33 said:
Potentially is the key word.

Do you not think it a better stance to give the club the benefit of the doubt before believing all of the rubbish that's written about them?

We would all (well most of us) love the club to come out and clarify all of these issues but to think that's a simple thing to do given the current media witch hunt is naive in the extreme.
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Why? In the Di Canio hoo-har the club gave about 3 statements in 3 days and it died down. It was only because Byrne butchered the second one that the Di Canio shit rumbled on so much.
 
Reiver said:
I think the conduct of the police may be mentioned by the judge in his closing address ....... just a hunch.
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I think that there are a number of questions regarding the police's conduct that need answering.

The statement to the BBC made me sit up, yet apart from you, no one seems to have mentioned it.

The female detective seemed to be second guessing the victim's feelings towards SAFC's decision to continue to play Johnson.

I can't recall seeing that before. The case may well have finished but the judge has yet to pass sentence.

Furthermore, wouldn't the same police have not been involved in any safeguarding reviews carried out by the club?

If so, what was their input at the time?

The David Conn Guardian article is worth a read. He poses some interesting questions regarding the conduct of Johnson's case.

Once sentencing is completed, apart from the usual prurient media shitstorm that will inevitably follow, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the conduct of one or two others is called to account.
 
Pancho said:
Similarly the story doesn't appear to have made the BBC's top ten news items any time today.

Sadly I suspect it's just the calm before the storm and it'll all come back with a vengeance when Johnson is sentenced.
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Yes. One of the main issues in sentencing will be about what he initially did or didn't admit and whether he prolonged proceedings to get money, that is more an issue for sentencing than the verdict imo, so shit will seems likely to hit the fan then.
 
The police are saying SAFC knew about the allegations. That's very different to what some are making the club out to of done or know, but hey that doesn't sell papers or get views on the internet. Everyone knew about the allegations, so nowt new there and Johnson told the club he was fighting it and pleading not guilty. He has shown throughout, that he has lied upon lies to try get away with this.
 
Cockney Mackem said:
It rather pales into insignificance compared to the number of times it has needed (and still needs) to be pointed out that the main issue is the allegations made about the club's meeting with Johnson in May 2015 and the club's non-denial of those allegations.
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It's obviously the main issue for you but ......... perhaps not for the victim and her family.

Never mind though, as long as your demands are met.
 
Cockney Mackem said:
I agree, people are getting into a bit of confusion regarding the police meeting with the club and other meeting(s). But in terms of the post I was replying to, the winner and PF record holder is how many times, now in the hundreds, that people have ignored the main point about the club's statement
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I can see what you're saying about the club's statement, but I'm still going to be asking who made the allegations first before addressing that in relation to the club's statement. If the allegations had been made by the police I'd be going radio rental over the club statement, and while I'm making a bit of a assumption here, I'd expect everyone else on this board would be as well.

However, if the allegations have been made by a convicted sex offender who was called a liar and manipulative by a judge, I'm not convinced that the club have to answer them. Unless of course you think Johnson is somehow telling the truth over this when he's lied through his teeth about numerous other things over a sustained period of time.

I suppose it just comes down to how much you believe the veracity of the source of those allegations. If you believe that source to be reliable, then yes, I can understand people being unhappy with the club's statement. I happen to doubt the source of those allegations, so end up thinking that the club's statement is sufficient.
 
prehab26 said:
Good peice by David Conn - The Guardian

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football club and the once-distinguished Professional Footballers Association were not called as witnesses in the trial of Adam Johnson’s sordid crimes, but it would have been instructive to see their officials engage with the legal duty to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So far they are falling short in the middle part of that responsibility, with their weaselly, pathetic responses to glaring questions about why Johnson was allowed to turn out, wearing Sunderland’s famous red and white striped shirt, in the globally broadcast Premier League, for 11 months after he was charged.

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weaves a claimed justification while avoiding the assertion landed on the club’s chief executive, Margaret Byrne, by Johnson’s barrister, Orlando Pownall QC. He said in court, apparently seeking to portray Johnson in some kind of better light, that on 4 May last year, Byrne saw the police interviews which showed Johnson admitted he had exchanged hundreds of messages with (ie groomed) and kissed the 15-year-old supporter and customer of Byrne’s club.

In the focus which has rightly turned on Sunderland, the nasty effects of Johnson’s legal case could be lost: Pownall’s argument that Byrne knew Johnson admitted it applies to his client too. Yet presumably with legal advice including from Pownall, Johnson decided to put his schoolgirl victim through a nightmare, by playing on for his £60,000 a week and not pleading guilty until the doors of court. how “horrendous” Johnson’s public denials had been for her, because “I’ve had to face so much abuse after he claimed his innocence”.

The impression is that Johnson’s lawyers calculated the victim might crack and withdraw her allegations as the ordeal of giving public evidence grew closer and Johnson pleaded guilty only when she stayed strong enough. Neither Pownall nor Paul Morris of Burton Copeland, Johnson’s solicitor, responded to the Guardian’s questions about their conduct of Johnson’s case.

Having been exposed for the 4 May meeting, Sunderland have relied for justification on that same calculating strategy, that Johnson was not pleading guilty. On what Byrne knew, there is some unattractively evasive wording: the meeting with Pownall, Johnson and Johnson’s father was “introductory”; Byrne was present “during part” of it; “some documents were received which were immediately sent to Mr Pownall for his attention” – even though Pownall was there.



Sunderland’s statement avoids the question of what Margaret Byrne, the club’s chief executive, knew. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA
The statement avoids the question of what Byrne knew, and she has failed to answer it herself. Instead, the manager Sam Allardyce was sent out to do a standard pre-match press conference in which the unfortunate Louise Wanless, the club’s media and communications manager, had to .


Last season, with Johnson playing, they finished three points above relegation. Now, at serious risk of going down this time, the goal Johnson scored in the 6 February 2-2 draw with Liverpool, most likely the last game he will play as a professional footballer, could preserve Sunderland their guaranteed £100m from next season’s Premier League TV rights. Survival will presumably justify Byrne’s own salary, which was £663,196 in 2013-14, and by then, Sunderland are surely figuring, they will have outlasted all these inconvenient questions.

:eek::eek::eek::eek:
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That's a far more balanced article than most I have to agree.
 
mag in peace said:
I fear that the other bloke was joking and your genuinely trying to use this as a way to get at mags lol.

There are plenty of people that support newcastle that are rightly arrested and trialled, whats your point ahha im not in charge of all newcastle fans.
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you're
 
bahtat said:
5 live were running hard with it up to and including the 9 o'clock headlines, after that it disappeared completely, also been taken down fro BBC News web site, seems strange
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I haven't heard much of 5 live today but I checked the main BBC website a few times and it didn't appear on their top ten stories.
 
Fred said:
Thing is as fans do we really want silence? Or do we want conclusive proof that our club didn't harbour someone that they could have possibly suspected would go down for this?
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But why do you care ? What will it change ? The lads fucked up and he'll get his just deserts but haway man half the adult male population frequenting most of the bars i went in, in various towns in the 90s wants 10yr if thats the case.

I really dont care one bit what the club did or didnt know. Surely an employee deserves some loyalty from an employer to a certain extent. Especially when that employee could bag you 100 million :)
 
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